Sunday, February 8, 2015

One of the major tenets of the peak oil collapse movement was that civilization will collapse and then revert to a medieval state. There will be no more electricity, gasoline, diesel, machinery, or any other conveniences of modern civilization. Instead, life will soon resemble what it was like in the 16th century. People will need to grow their own food, make tools by hand, and so on. These ideas are found throughout the works of Richard Heinberg, James Kunstler, and many, many others.

To that end, many peak oil doomers relocated to very rural areas and began growing their own food on small plots of land. Some of them also engaged in "re-skilling" which meant learning medieval crafts such as making shoes, weaving, sewing, blacksmithing, and so on. They believed (and some of them still believe) that doing so was preparation for the new medieval era which would happen after civilization collapsed from peak oil.

Some peak oilers are still doing this. Some of them are still trying to grow their own food or are considering moving to rural locations so they can grow their own food. Let me give an example from a comment I read today on peakoil.com:

I plan on buying a house in the middle of nowhere and starting to grow food there... The best way to prepare for peak oil is to grow your own food and help others grow their own food.

...and the same sentiments have been echoed thousands of times on peak oil forums.

Unfortunately, the author of the above quotation is sadly mistaken. Growing your own food is a waste of time and is the worst way to prepare for collapse. Even if civilization were really collapsing, it would still be a waste of time to grow your own food.

Food is a about 50x cheaper now, relative to the average income, than it will be when the tractors stop running. For example, it takes a subsistence farmer about 100% of his labor to grow enough basic foodstuffs to survive, whereas it takes a modern American about 2% of his income to do the same. As a result, the rational strategy to prepare for collapse is to make as much money as possible now, and to stockpile food while it's easily obtained. You could stockpile far more food by purchasing it than you could by growing it. Furthermore, you could stockpile far more food now than you could ever hope to grow after the collapse. As a result, the best strategy is to stockpile food while it's still plentiful, not to grow it, which would be a waste of time even if civilization were collapsing.

I think the best thing to do would be to stockpile canisters of granulated sugar in some hidden remote location. Do not relocate to the hidden remote location, because that would interfere with your income and therefore with your ability to stockpile food. I would stockpile granulated sugar because it has an indefinite shelf life, is extremely cheap, is calorically dense, and could be bartered after the collapse for whatever other foods you would need. Granulated sugar would be like gold after the collapse and could be bartered for other goods.

Let's say I wanted to stockpile enough granulated sugar to provide calories for the remainder of my life. I have about 15,000 days left to live, which means I will consume (15,000*2500) 37,500,000 food calories in the remainder of my life. Since there are 4 food calories per gram of sugar, I would require 9,375,000 grams of sugar, or 9,375 kilograms, to provide enough calories for the remainder of my life. That's about 20,000 pounds of sugar, for those of us in the United States. I checked out the price of sugar at my local Sam's Club and found that it costs about $5 for a 10-pound bag. As a result, I could stockpile the 20,000 pounds of sugar I would need for approximately $10,000.

Let me repeat that fact:

I can stockpile enough food calories for the remainder of my life for $10,000.

That's about 2 months of my wages. Stockpiling food now is vastly easier than a lifetime of horrendous toil after the collapse.

Obviously, I can't live on sugar alone, but I could barter sugar for whatever other foods I would need. After the collapse, it will be calories that are in short supply. Sugar will be like gold. I could barter some of my sugar for other foods that provide the micronutrients I need. Let other people do the farming and back-breaking labor. Or, if I preferred, I could also stockpile some canned vegetables since vegetables are far cheaper now (relative to my income) than they will be after the collapse.

There is another advantage of stockpiling food rather than growing it. If the collapse prophecies fail, yet again, for the 50th time, then I've lost almost nothing. I spent $10,000 on sugar, and maybe also some money on canned vegetables, but it's still a fairly minor financial loss. By stockpiling food, I can continue living in a normal area and won't waste years or decades of my life preparing for a collapse that doesn't occur.

In short, growing your own food is the worst way of preparing for collapse, for two reasons. First, food is about 50x cheaper now (relative to the average income) than it will be after the collapse, so it makes sense to earn money and buy food now, while it's cheap. Second, if the collapse prophecies fail yet again, then I won't have wasted my life.

Growing your own food simply doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense even if civilization were collapsing. Even if you want to prepare for collapse, the best approach would be to stockpile food and get on with your life in the mean time.